Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Barns, C. E..
Transfer of dye shows quality of contact between two mating parts. Mating parts checked for fit by spreading fluorescent dye on one, making brief light contact with other, and looking (under UV light) for transferred dye. Dye offers greater visibility under ultraviolet illumination, allowing better indication of how precisely parts match and what areas interfere.
A deployment system that will safely pay one cable from a ballistic forebody when the forebody is separated from an afterbody (to which the cable is secured and when the separation is marked by high acceleration and velocity) is described.
Prototype high-acceleration umbilical-cable deployment allows electrical communication between above-ground instrumentation and ballistic projectile below surface. Cable deployment is made up of forebody and afterbody. Foreboy can be separated from afterbody by rocket, or they can be fired as unit at target that stops afterbody on impact (forebody would continue, deploying cable). Similar design could be used in study of sea ice and in other surface-penetration studies.
The device proposed to gather subsurface data on the planet Mars is a ballistic probe which penetrates the soil after a free fall through the Martian atmosphere. Highlights of the design, development, and testing of several features of the Mars Surface Penetration Probe are outlined.